English Standard: Sample Multiple Choice Quiz: Literary Techniques

A story or narrative with two meanings; the obvious or literal meaning that is immediately clear, and a second, usually hidden meaning. The second meaning often acts as a commentary on real world events or issues or relates to a specific topic/theme being dealt with.

_______ and mood are often used interchangeably, as they are similar but used in different ways and have different results. _______ refers to the feeling or mood created by a place, situation or text – it usually changes from scene to scene and is built by sensory imagery and word choices. This is what makes dark, stormy nights in novels feel eerie and foreboding.

Uses two similar concepts or ideas to create a relationship or draw comparisons between the two. Can also be used to contrast two ideas, however it’s most commonly used to prove how something is similar or use one idea to explain another. Often features the phrase “is to”, though not always.

The process by which characters are introduced, described and then fully formed through their choices, interactions, etc. _______ is what makes characters feel like real people, and is often based in their morals, values and personality traits. If a character has strong _______ it is easy to imagine how they would react in any given situation. It also makes it harder to believe situations where characters do things that go against their usual traits, creating audience suspicion or disbelief.

Any situation wherein the audience is privy to some sort of information that the characters do not know, building audience tension, suspense, etc. This is usually achieved by cutting away from the main character to see what another character is doing/planning, then returning to the uninformed character and watching the results play out, all the while knowing what the second character has done/planned.

A _______ is another character in a story that specifically contrasts the main character in order to emphasise the main character’s attributes and values or compare the values of the two characters. Oftentimes a character’s ________ will have vastly differing ideas on the same topics, share some kind of similar background or experience, deal with the same situations in different ways, etc. Usually there are some similarities shared between the two characters, or a sense that character A is what character B ‘could have been’.

An object, image or person that symbolises something larger, usually a complex concept or theme. This is most often seen in ‘hero’ characters, as they are intended to symbolise certain ideas and values.

This involves setting up two characters, situations, settings or ideas to be _______ to one another, reflecting each other but having different outcomes. Often the stories of a hero and a villain will be _______, with the villain making the ‘wrong’ choices and the hero the ‘right’ ones. _______ situations are similar, with a similar setup or scenario having a different outcome to another based on characters and choices.

What is left out of a text – missing scenes, fade to blacks, conversations only mentioned in passing, etc. _______ lend largely to ambiguity and often leave it up to the audience to ‘fill in the blank’ of what may have happened with their own imagination. Sometimes a specific scenario can be implied.